80 Million Reasons to Die

I finished my breakfast in silence.

Just then, I heard Lily saying, "Ms. Lyons, I saw that the lottery draws today. Don't forget to check your ticket!"

It suddenly hit me that today was the day the lottery results were announced. Which meant in one week, Lily would jump into the river and take her own life.

In other words, I only had seven days to figure this out.

I walked to the living room and grabbed the lottery ticket. Then, I entered the numbers into my phone.

Sure enough, I won 80 million dollars!

At some point, Lily walked up beside me and stared at the screen in shock. "80 million? Ms. Lyons, you won 80 million?"

Lily looked ecstatic, spinning around the living room in excitement. I watched her bouncing figure, but a question slowly formed in my mind.

I was the one who won the lottery, yet she seemed even happier than I was.

Seeing that I did not say anything for a while, Lily seemed to realize she got too carried away.

In my past life, she reacted the same way, acting more thrilled than I was when I discovered I won. But back then, I was too caught up in my own excitement to notice how strange it was.

Jayden already left for work.

I pretended to be overjoyed and danced around the living room with the ticket. I talked about how Jayden and I would go out for a fancy dinner tonight, and how we would travel abroad to see the world.

When Lily heard I might be leaving town, she set down her cleaning cloth and stood in front of me, looking embarrassed.

"Ms. Lyons, if you and Mr. Sanders are going away, could I possibly take two days off? My mom's been sick recently, and I want to go home to take care of her. Plus, with the pregnancy, I've been feeling pretty tired."

Her face was full of worry, and she looked like she might cry, terrified I would say no.

Lily told us a while back that she was pregnant. It was her boyfriend's child, someone she met in the city.

Jayden and I were both happy for her, thinking she finally escaped her past and found a good future for herself. We even said we wanted to meet the baby once it was born.

I took her hand reassuringly. "It's fine, Lily. If your family's sick, you should go home. I'll give you some money later, and you can pass it along to your mom for me."

She looked at me gratefully and turned to pack her things in her room.

I stared at her retreating figure, suddenly remembering something. "Lily, do you have a younger sister back home?"

She froze mid-step. "N-No, I don't, Ms. Lyons. You must be remembering wrong."

I replied, "Maybe I am. I've had a lot on my mind lately, probably got confused."

She hurried into her room and shut the door with a sharp click.

I mulled over her reaction, finding it deeply suspicious.

In my past life, the court awarded all 80 million dollars from my lottery winnings to Lily's younger sister as compensation. But now she was claiming she did not have a sister.

So, who got the 80 million?

Now that I just won the money, Lily suddenly wanted to go back home to visit her family. In the year she worked for us, every time she got a call from home, Lily always sounded impatient.

Her abusive, alcoholic father and her gambling-addicted mother were always finding ways to ask her for money.

So, why would she suddenly want to go home and see them?

There had to be some secret she was hiding.

After Lily finished packing, she said goodbye and left.

I bundled myself up in a disguise and quietly followed her. However, what I saw left me completely disappointed.